Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SKRDC (Architecture as a Cross-Cultural Exchange:The Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition, 1965-2017)
Período documentado: 2018-09-01 hasta 2020-07-31
This Marie Sklodowska-Curie postdoctoral project engages with the intense processes of global interconnectedness that characterise the post-WWII era and tries to understand its effects on historiography and architecture culture at large. It sets out to develop a new methodology for writing the history of architecture post-WWII that can reflect much more accurately than existing histories the intricacy of globalisation and its effect on the built environment. The Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition (1965-present), a long-running international ideas competition from Japan, serves as the case study, showing how architectural ideas are not simply exported, imported, or translated but also move between different cultural contexts through a complex process of transculturation. The project relies on the concept of “contact zones” that was first suggested by literature scholar Mary Louise Pratt as “social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power” (Pratt, 1991). A history organised around “architectural contact zones” (competitions, exhibitions, congresses, seminars, biennales, summer schools, emergency aid programmes) advances a fundamental revision of canonical and increasingly discredited narratives of architectural history founded on a genealogy of heroic individual designers and supported by Eurocentric and North American examples. Organising history around intense meetings between architects from different cultural backgrounds leads to an increased acknowledgement of architecture as a cross-cultural, multi-authored endeavour that includes contributions by those otherwise marginalised by dominant narratives. In a society that is increasingly characterised by the exchange between cultures and actors, the writing of this different form of history is of paramount importance.
The project started with an analysis of contact zones from a meta-theoretical perspective. A literature review helped develop an understanding of the methodological lessons that could be learnt from the disciplines that first introduced the concept and how it developed through other disciplines. Next, I conceptualised what a contact zone is in the field of architecture, how an architectural contact zone comes into being, who its possible protagonists are, and why its formation happens at a particular time and place. After giving a precise definition of an “architectural contact zones” as “important points of encounter between different architectural cultures in which ideas, approaches and tools are negotiated, selectively borrowed, partially adopted or rejected, bringing about an inter-referenced new form of architectural knowledge”, I set out multiple examples of architectural contact zones. Competitions, exhibitions, congresses, biennales, summer meetings, and reconstruction aid programmes all serve as drivers of architectural culture, yet each has its own internal logic. An international colloquium and accompanying methodological work organised in an early stage of the project was a key moment, sharing the initial findings to colleague-historians and receiving critical yet valuable feedback for the next stage.
In the second stage, the project looked at the operational aspects of architectural contact zones and carefully examined the mechanism behind the Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition. By studying the competition briefs, the particulars of the winning entries and multiple honourable mentions, the judges’ final remarks, and the accompanying debates published in the journals Shinkenchiku and Japan Architect, as well as the wider ‘after-effects’ disseminating into both Japanese and English literature, I systematically analysed how the architectural contact zone of the competition is established, accessed, maintained, and promoted. I also traced the development of each of the 48 competition editions, from the initial theme set by the judge to the way it affected the wider architectural debate. In this process-oriented approach, I analysed in detail to what extent the vision of the judge transformed in multidirectional ways: both influencing and being influenced by interaction with a new cultural context.
In the second stage, the project looked at the operational aspects of architectural contact zones and carefully examined the mechanism behind the Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition. By studying the competition briefs, the particulars of the winning entries and multiple honourable mentions, the judges’ final remarks, and the accompanying debates published in the journals Shinkenchiku and Japan Architect, as well as the wider ‘after-effects’ disseminating into both Japanese and English literature, I systematically analysed how the architectural contact zone of the competition is established, accessed, maintained, and promoted. I also traced the development of each of the 48 competition editions, from the initial theme set by the judge to the way it affected the wider architectural debate. In this process-oriented approach, I analysed in detail to what extent the vision of the judge transformed in multidirectional ways: both influencing and being influenced by interaction with a new cultural context.
This project has demonstrated, at a preliminary level, the potential of contact zones as a generally applicable historiographic method in the field of architecture. Already within the grant period, the research topic of the Shinkenchiku competition-as-contact zone has sparked great interest among the former judges and participants I have interviewed as part of an oral history archive. There has also been worldwide interest from architectural historians exploring cross-cultural histories (colloquia, conferences, peer-reviewed articles), scholars in the field of architecture competitions (editorial), and students of architecture (teaching), as well as funding agents (grants). Multiple academic conferences, including the annual conferences of the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) and themed conferences organised by the European Architectural Historians Network (EAHN), provided the setting to present my initial findings on the different effects of architectural contact zones. Along with Prof. Tom Avermaete, I introduced the notion of contact zones as a new theoretical and methodological framework into the field of architecture at the SAH 2020 Annual Conference, using as a case study my Marie Sklodowska-Curie postdoctoral findings. At SAH 2021 Montréal, the notion of contact zones was explored further in its own panel session, in which we proposed to colleague-historians that this framework is equally applicable to the study of architecture exhibitions. In the role of guest editor, I initiated the idea of studying different modalities of the architecture competition and how the actors involved in them have collectively produced architecture knowledge. Papers resulting from my postdoctoral research project targeting an academic audience are now appearing in peer-reviewed academic journals. Organising and tutoring an international summer school at ETH Zürich, a dedicated seminar “The City Represented: Visions of Urban Living” and the supervision of four master’s students in their independent research (Vertiefungsarbeit), all using the Shinkenchiku competition as a case study, allowed me to test new ideas about the role and character of contact zones in architecture culture. In particular, the mapping of the operational aspects of the contact zone using the innovative concept-mapping software KUMU, was of prime importance in improving understanding of the internal logic of the Shinkenchiku competition as a contact zone. With support from the Creative Industries Fund NL and an internal career seed grant from ETH Zürich, I will be able to complete the final stage of my project in the form of a published book, along with a professionally designed website and travelling exhibition; the latter two will be effective media for taking my research outside academia. The exhibition will serve as a call for lost entries as well as a discussion on the role of (incomplete) archives. The accompanying website aims to collect the non-winning competition entries that were destroyed by the competition organisers but, in my opinion, form crucial “minor” voices in telling a more accurate and inclusive history of the Shinkenchiku competition.